In the realm of law and liberty the best things ask for patience and waiting.  Out of nothing nothing comes.  The institution that represents little toil but little time endures.  Man’s early history is involved in obscurity, largely because his early arts were mushroomic—­completed quickly, they quickly perished.  The ideas scratched upon the flat leaf or the thin reed represented scant labor and therefore soon were dust.  But he who holds in his hand a modern book holds the fruitage of years many and long.  For that book we see the workmen ranging far for linen; we see the printer toiling upon his movable types; we see the artist etching his plate; the author giving his days to study and his nights to reflection; and because the book harvests the study of a great man’s lifetime it endures throughout generations.  The sciences also increase in value only as the time spent upon them is lengthened.  Few and brief were the days required for the early astronomers to work out the theory that the earth is flat, the sky a roof, the stars holes in which the gods have hung lighted lamps.  The theory that makes our earth sweep round the sun, our sun sweep round a far-off star, all lesser groups sweep round one central sun, that shepherds all the other systems, asks for the toil of Galileo and Kepler, of Copernicus and Newton, and a great company of modern students.  The father of astronomy had to wait a thousand years for the fruition of his science.  Upon those words, called law or love, or mother or king, man hath with patience labored.  The word wife or mother is so rich to-day as to make Homer’s ideal, Helen, seem poor and almost contemptible.  The girl was very beautiful, but very painful the alacrity with which she passes from the arms of Menelaus to the arms of Paris, from the arms of Paris to those of Deiphobus, his conqueror.  If one hour only was required for this lovely creature to pack her belongings preparatory to moving to the tent of her new lord, one day fully sufficed for transferring her affections from one prince to another.  But, toiling ever upward to her physical beauty, woman added mental beauty, moral beauty, until the word wife or mother or home came to have almost infinite wealth of meaning.

In government also the best political instruments ask for longest time.  Hercules ruled by the right of physical strength.  Assembling the people, he challenged all rivals to combat.  A single hour availed for cutting off the head of his enemy.  Henceforth he reigned an unchallenged king.  Because man hath with patience toiled long upon this republic, how rich and complex its institutions!  The modern presidency does not represent the result of an hour’s combat between two Samsons.  Forty years ago the eager aspirants began their struggle.  A great company of young men all over the land determined to build up a reputation for patriotism, statesmanship, wisdom and character.  As the time for selecting a president approached, the people passed in review